GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 730729
Please put back WINDOWPATH support
Last modified: 2014-07-22 21:39:56 UTC
Hello, For braille accessibility to work properly, the WINDOWPATH environment variable is indeed, to declare which VT the X session is running on. This was still supported in gdm 3.11.x, see the gdm_slave_set_windowpath function which fetches it from the XFree86_VT property. I can see in the git log: “ slave: Remove support for WINDOWPATH It's an outdated, horrible system that doesn't really need to be in the code anymore. Die. ” How the commiter knows that it is outdated and horrible, and even more, that is does not really need to be in the code?? This *is* needed for proper braille support. Please at least ask people who have put the code in, before removing it...
XDG_VTNR should be used to retrieve the current VT.
So we now have to update *our* software, broken by the newer gdm version. Really, please notify people in advance about removing features they brought in.
Sorry, I didn't know that the feature was in use. When I talked to Ray about it, he said it was for a weird nested mode that we didn't use anymore. In any case, he may choose to revert it, so I left it open. I was just giving you the "supported" method for now.
Actually XDG_VTNR does not work when the user used startx from a text console: XDG_VTNR contains the VT of the text console where he ran startx, not the VT taken by the X server.
does startx from the console set WINDOWPATH ?
Yes.
Btw, the WINDOWPATH rationale is on http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg/2005-December/011300.html and answers
Created attachment 281439 [details] [review] Revert "session: drop remnants of WINDOWPATH" This reverts commit 6e1f486ca0d37da9fc8239493633deed6d796b93.
Created attachment 281440 [details] [review] Revert "slave: Remove support for WINDOWPATH" This reverts commit 64210ac9dc1dafd1970ad0abcf46a010731d17b4.
Attachment 281439 [details] pushed as e4dbf00 - Revert "session: drop remnants of WINDOWPATH" Attachment 281440 [details] pushed as 13dc48d - Revert "slave: Remove support for WINDOWPATH"
thanks!